


Dread

by spacs



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dissociation, F/M, Mild spoilers for Trespasser DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:58:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4774361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacs/pseuds/spacs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He refused to acknowledge that it was his mistakes that lead him to her in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dread

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware that this does have some dissociation elements to it as I fully believe that it is something that Solas struggles with. This is written from his perspective and some of that did come into play.
> 
> With the Trespasser DLC out, I could not stop thinking about what exactly Solas had thought and what he had felt during his final romance scene during Inquisition. I am positive that this has been done before, but Solasmancers are so starved to content and to hurt, I figured I'd throw my say into the mix. I didn't mention any name for the Inquisitor, but all reactions and interactions with Solas are based on my Inquisitor, Ayva. But feel free to imagine yours instead, if you think it fits.

It took no convincing to pull her away from Skyhold for a few days. Her advisors were still traveling back from the Temple of Mythal, and she had taken the opportunity to have a break. Everyone could feel the tension building. This war was drawing to a close after all these years. Perhaps it was the most inopportune time to take a break, but it was high time everyone stopped for a few days to relax and prepare for the final push.

She was very happy to take a brief trip with him. They rarely had opportunity to spend time together outside of Skyhold. They traveled light, taking only their mounts and a few supplies. They spent nights looking at the stars as she asked him questions about his travels and she told him stories about adventures with her clan before the Inquisition.

They stopped in Crestwood, which was far more peaceful now that the Inquisition had a presence and the rift in the lake had been closed. The night they were to leave they took a final stroll, and Solas took her to where the Veil felt weakest. It was the closest he could get to the Fade… things had always been easier for him in the Fade and he needed all the help he could get to tell her this. But he wanted – needed – her to know how much she meant to him. No matter her reaction, after these years, she had to know.

Holding her hand was like an anchor. They walked leisurely to the edge of the water, the silence comforting and safe. He glanced at her, noting the light smile that was on her lips. She was happy, despite their recent trouble with Corypheus and the coming danger looming over their heads. “The Veil is thin here,” he mentioned slowing to a stop. “Can you feel it on your skin, tingling?” He rested a hand on her cheek, admiring her features and the way her skin felt against his. He smiled too now – a common reaction to being in her presence. He studied her face and spoke carefully, “I was trying to determine some way to show you what you mean to me.”

As his hand withdrew from her cheek, her own reached up, touching it thoughtfully as she smirked at him. “I’m listening,” she grinned, raising one of her eyebrows teasingly. “And I can offer a few suggestions.”

One of his eyebrows lifted at the flirtatious suggestion, the corner of his mouth twitching up. It hadn’t been the first time she’d teased him so bluntly. “I shall bear that in mind,” he teased back, before dropping his voice into a more serious tone. “For now, the best gift I can offer is the truth.” Her expression changed slowly into one that was attentive and interested. She was always interested in his stories and his opinions. She valued what he had to say, and he always felt connected with her.

“You are unique,” he complimented her, as he had so many times before. “In all of Thedas I never expected to find someone who could draw my attention from the Fade. You have become important to me. More important that I could’ve imagined.”

His stomach lurched and he could feel his chest tense up. His arms felt numb and he could feel the truth building up inside of him. A million thoughts were running through his head in the brief moment between her smile and her answer. He had to tell her.

“As you are to me,” she replied.

“Then what I must tell you… the truth.” _I am Fen’Harel. The Dread Wolf._

In that second of pause he felt like the world would fall out from underneath him. It was the truth. But that specific truth did not pour from his mouth. Instead he told her of the origin of the vallaslin. It almost felt like he was watching himself behind glass. He wanted to tell her, it had been right there at the tip of his tongue and yet he withheld the truth from her once more. He spun more excuses as to why she couldn’t know.

_May the Dread Wolf take you._

He could hear himself talking and responding to her. He could hear himself offering to remove the vallaslin, despite the fact that he didn’t want to change anything about her. When she accepted and they knelt together, he watched as her face was lit up by the light of his spell and her vallaslin was taken away. She was beautiful, as she had always been.

The moment her lips touched his it was like he was thrown back into his own body. He pulled her in but kept the kiss gentle, loving, and when it ended, when her touch was gone, he felt… sad. Without the vallaslin on her face, she looked as free as the slaves he helped in a different lifetime. Yet, she was not. It was time – past time – for him to let her go.

“And I am sorry. I have distracted you from your duty. It will not happen again.”

The way she looked at him… there was no betrayal written across her face like he expected. She was shocked, hurt, and unable to say anything except, “Solas…”

All the tension fled his body and he felt empty, hollow. His bones felt like dust under his skin but he didn’t leave his body again. He stayed and had to endure. He had to feel this pain as a reminder to himself that he could not stop making mistakes. “ _Please_ , vhenan.” He moved away from her, putting a space between them that felt like miles. She couldn’t understand this.

“Solas… don’t leave me. Not now.” Suddenly he could see the weight of the coming battle that she could feel, and the pressure that was, no doubt, crushing her. It had been easy to forget over their journey here. They’d been happy and together, like they were the only ones in the world that mattered.

Then she reached out for him and he recoiled. The pain that flickered across her features was evident but he knew that if she held him he would concede. He could not.

“I love you,” she pleaded with him.

His voice caught in this throat. He wanted nothing more than to pull her close and kiss her, to hold her and tell her everything. “You…” he faltered, his desire almost getting the better of him, “have a rare and marvelous spirit. In another life…” It was his mistakes that cost him this love. They could have had a life in the world that he destroyed.

He refused to acknowledge that it was his mistakes that lead him to her in the first place.

“Why not this one?” Her tone was mixed with demanding and pleading. He could see the future she believed could exist was slipping away from her. He had wasted so many of her years and so much of her time, letting her believe that there was a future to be had with him. It wasn’t as if there hadn’t been other suitors or other interested parties. She was the Inquisitor. She was proud, but she could be so soft and understanding. Fiercely loyal and fiercely beautiful, she had so many other paths she could have walked. But she chose him, and he let her.

He loved her.

“I…” She saw his hesitation and stepped to him, and he almost let her. “ _Can’t_ ,” he whispered, holding his hands up defensively. “I’m sorry.”

Don’t look back, he told himself. If you look back, you will crumble.


End file.
